


A Quantification of Forever

by agentverbivore (verbivore8642)



Series: Forever AU [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Forever (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Police, Anachronistic, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forever (ABC) AU, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jemma's POV, Morning Sex, Nudity, Police Procedural, Sexual Content, Temporary Character Death, past Simmons/Ward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:13:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4958287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbivore8642/pseuds/agentverbivore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost two hundred years ago, Jemma had thought she was in love. But it wasn’t until she fell for Fitz that she realized how very wrong she’d been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Characterization Note: Jemma is almost two centuries old, so if she seems somewhat unlike show!Jemma, that's why.
> 
> Trigger Warning: In keeping with the premise of the TV show/this fic, the characters do discuss suicide (in connection with the protagonist's immortality). Nothing graphic (and since she's immortal, the death would be impermanent), but if you're triggered by such discussions please read cautiously.
> 
> It's not necessary to have seen any of _Forever_ to read (and hopefully enjoy) this story. If you haven't read the first fic in this series - _[Forever is an Ambiguous Concept](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3130880)_ \- before, however, I would urge you to do so prior to starting this fic. It relies heavily on the original.
> 
> Unedited (because poor MK is currently reading my other monster of an AU). Considering that about ~9k of this was written back in January, the emotional themes are oddly relevant for current canon. :-)
> 
> Comments are my lifeblood!

_October 18 th, 2014_

 

The wind whipped Jemma’s hair into a frenzy on the deserted street corner as she desperately wished she’d escaped without Fitz’s notice. He stood a few feet in front of her, leaning on the dim streetlamp as he caught his breath.

“You said –” Straightening, he inhaled, his eyes a deep winter blue as they met hers. “You said we would do this _together_.” His tone was accusing, sharp enough to crack against her like physical pain.

“It won’t work, Fitz,” she said, exhausted and antsy, just wanting to be somewhere else. If she weren’t looking at him, maybe this wouldn’t feel like the dozen or so bullets that had wrenched apart her intestines over the course of her lifetime.

“You _promised_ Jemma!” The shadows cast by nearby trees danced across his face, hiding his expression from her, but she didn’t need to see him to know the pain and betrayal reflected there. “And then you just left me – in the middle of the night you wrote a bloody note and you _left_!”

Lighting struck a few streets over and Jemma flinched, reminded sharply of the night she first died two centuries ago. A thunderstorm had been brewing then, too, before a madman had rushed into her emergency care unit (such as it was in 1814) and shot her through the heart. Unsurprisingly, she wasn’t sure if that had actually hurt more than the look on his face did now. (But then again, that had been a very long time ago.) 

“There’s no cure, Fitz! You’re going to die and I can’t,” she pleaded, praying that he would just let her leave.

“So don’t you want to spend what time we have left together? Or did you never mean any of it?” His voice cracked at the last, and Jemma was one second away from breaking down and running to him when a dark figure emerged from a nearby alleyway.

Before she could register their actions, the shadow had grabbed Fitz from behind and slid a rapier through his chest, letting his body and the sword drop together to the ground. The stranger looked up at Jemma, and she knew they were smiling even though she couldn’t see a mouth. “It’ll be easier this way.”

Jemma screamed, frozen in place as the blood drained from Fitz’s slumped corpse and ran in rivulets towards her –

She woke up gasping for air, tears stinging her eyes and then spilling over before she could consciously recognize what was happening. Her nightmares hadn’t been this vivid in years; they’d been much more common in the relatively early days, right around when she had just watched everyone she knew finally die for the first time while she lived on. Before her condition had taken hold, she’d never woken up sobbing. Deep and abiding psychological terror seemed to be one of immortality’s stranger and less pleasant side effects. 

Sometimes, she tried to remember the person she’d been in her original lifetime. Tried to bring back the girl who didn’t mind being alone as long as she had her work to complete, who was glad to have a fiancé but made saving people her priority despite her profession’s supposed impropriety. But then she’d died and returned, and somehow became both stronger and more fragile. Love became harder and recklessness more easy – what were rules when your very existence denied those of nature itself? Jemma would empty herself out to prevent loss, but somehow pain would find its way through the cracks, masquerading as friendship or care, and, inevitably, another confidant would die. She still smiled more than the average person; she couldn’t quite help that, even after all this time. But she was the only one who knew that it had taken on a more brittle edge than it once had, any undercurrent of joy tainted by knowing that soon enough it would be over. The only one who knew, that is, until Fitz, who had begun to see through her façade almost effortlessly. 

Normally when she awoke like this, she was alone with the fear, left to breathe through the panic until she reminded herself of all that she had to live for – even if she never truly had someone with whom to share her life. Now, sitting up and pulling the sheets around her bare skin, she curled over herself as she tried to quiet down before she woke up Fitz. It was a lost cause, though, because he’d had an arm slung over her waist while they were sleeping and her sudden movement startled him awake, his voice immediately thinning to worriedness once his brain processed her behavior.

“What’s happen... shit, Jemma, what’s wrong?” His hands, eternally so much warmer than any part of her, moved instinctively to rub her back as he clumsily sat up behind her. “Hey, s’okay, it was a dream, it’s over now.” 

Somehow his concern only made it harder for her to breathe. Before these few months she’d spent with Fitz, it had been almost two centuries since she’d last allowed herself to be vulnerable like this around another person – and there was a reason why it had taken her that long to trust again. But here was Fitz, this sweet, oddball, Scottish genius, who knew her most damning secret and was still here, sitting next to her in bed and smoothing careful circles over her shoulders and back. Jemma had thought she’d never be able to have this, and she was torn between the hangover from her nightmare, pure joy, and the paralyzing fear that one day he was going to be taken from her.

“Just hold me, please, Fitz,” she whispered, squeezing her knees more tightly to her chest.

Without further questioning or comment, he shuffled across the mattress so that the side of his hip was pressed against her arse, and wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could despite the awkward angle. His bare chest radiated warmth through the chilled skin of her back, and it almost felt like calm was physically flowing from his body to hers. 

She had to learn to not let her fear for his future become all-consuming, she knew that – it was the one thing absolutely guaranteed to ruin what little time they did have together. As much as she did worry, the fact was that Jemma had decided to let Fitz in – to give herself over to an actual relationship – and there was no way she could truly imagine leaving him now. Fitz was hers, as long as he’d have her, and that had to be enough. 

 

\------

 

_April, 1814_

 

Although Jemma had only been gone for two weeks, it felt like a lifetime – particularly because those two weeks had not only completely changed her, but also made her doubt everything she’d ever been taught. For a self-avowed scientist (even one who had to settle for being a nurse because of her gender and constricting social mores) to discover that she could not be killed was more than a small shock. For her to then be kidnapped on a black market merchant’s galley and spend seven days terrified of all the ways that these reprobates could harm or destroy her... well, Jemma Simmons simply wasn’t the same person she’d been when she left. And she was trying to figure out how to tell this to her fiancé.

She’d managed to escape the galley at a port of call, using gunpowder she’d siphoned out of one of their reserve barrels as a distraction, and had then walked the long, arduous route back to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her parents had moved there in anticipation of her marriage to the prosperous son of a local mayor, and so although she was not unfamiliar with long trips, she now preferred to take the journey on her own two feet. If she were careful, she could at least make certain that she would not be kidnapped again.

Once she arrived in Cambridge, however, weary and still terrified, she eschewed her parents’ house in favor of finding her fiancé, knowing that he could send them a message that she had returned. His house was closer to the outskirts of town anyway, meaning that her journey could end that much sooner. At long last, she stepped through the white-washed wooden fence of what would soon be _their_ front yard, self-consciously tucking loose hairs behind her ears and hoping that he wouldn’t judge her for her bedraggled appearance, considering all that she’d been through.

He was talking to the cook on the front steps, his back to Jemma as the older woman’s face slackened in shock. She let her lips form a small smile as he turned and registered her presence, his sculpted jaw dropping and normally sure hands hanging limply by his side. 

“Hello, Grant,” she whispered, but before the words were out of her mouth he’d run the few meters between them to scoop her up in his arms, a ragged laugh making its way out of his throat.

“You’re _alive_ , Jemma – thank _God_.” Grant held her tightly and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, neither of them caring about any stares they might receive for their impropriety. Letting a few errant tears fall, Jemma breathed easily for the first time since the night she died. The sun was warm on her skin, and her fiancé’s arms felt like home.

 

\------

 

_October 17 th, 2014_

 

Another day, another case solved – although Jemma’s mind was far from her job as she tried to slot her key into the lock. Fitz was pressed tightly against her back, hands firm and heated on her hips and lips working their magic along the side of her neck.

“Get the damned thing open,” he muttered, stubble scraping tantalizingly against her skin.

“It would be easier,” she said, swatting his hands away, “if you’d give me two inches of space – ah-ha!” At last the key turned properly, and she swung the wooden door open. 

As she dropped her purse onto the entryway table, she had just enough time to register that the kitchen light was on before Fitz grabbed ahold of her and crowded her up against the wall just below the staircase. His mouth unerringly sought out that one spot just below her ear that made her shiver, and he slid his hands up the back of her blouse in that particular way that caused her knees to weaken. A breathy sigh escaped her lips and she tilted her head back, eyes slipping closed as she gave in to him for just a few moments.

Since the night he’d learned the truth about her condition, their relationship had rocketed straight from zero to sixty, and Jemma knew without at doubt that she’d never dated anyone like Fitz. During the day, their professional partnership continued to earn them one commendation after another, and at night Fitz seemingly made it his mission to become everything she’d never dreamed of finding. Not just in bed – although he truly excelled there just as much as he did on their cases – but in simply being with her. Some nights, they just talked for hours without ever doing more than cuddling. He would talk about the inventions he wished the NYPD had the budget to sanction, and she’d watch the way his eyes lit up as he sketched the ideas out in words, his mind brighter than all the lights in the city’s skyline. In almost two centuries of living, Jemma had never been as fascinated by another human being as she was with Fitz.

Of course, she was rather fond of their physical chemistry, too, and she was reminded of their evening plans as he ground his hips against her, his arousal pressing heatedly against her through their clothes. 

“I love watching you work,” he murmured, tugging lightly at her earlobe with his teeth. “When you show everyone up –”

“When I’m the boss,” she purred back, grinning at the groan this elicited. “I think I know what you’re angling for tonight, Detective Fitz.”

“Still not technically a detective,” he replied, nuzzling in for a deep kiss. “But I’ll take it anyway.” 

“Go upstairs, and I’ll be right up.” He pouted at her and she laughed, shoving him up the first stair. “Go _on_ – I need to make sure Phil’s not staying home.” Giving her an exaggerated sigh, he traipsed up the staircase, flashing her a bright grin before he went.

Her own smile only grew as she watched him round the upper landing, totally enamored of the way he could go from sexy to adorable in no time flat. As someone who had experienced more than her fair share of partners, Jemma knew that it was a rare person indeed who could make her knees weak one second and then have her laughing uncontrollably the next.

Forcing herself out of her reverie, she eventually returned to the task at hand and peeked her head through the kitchen archway. Although she went through decades of liking and not liking cooking, this kitchen had been one of the selling points when she’d purchased the house. The yellow walls made it seem bright and warm even in winter, and the marble-topped island had been a hub for both her cooking and Phil’s homework. The two of them had lived here when he was a small child, and some of her fondest memories of New York consisted of miniature him kneeling on the countertop and watching avidly as she decorated pancakes with his favorite superheroes. Once her agelessness was a few months shy of noticeable they’d moved to the Midwest, but a couple years ago, having ascertained that none of the neighbors were the same, they’d returned. These days, he made pancakes more often than she, thanks to the looser hours of running his own private detective agency.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Phil muttered into his mobile. Hearing her footsteps, he held up one finger and rolled his eyes. “I told him we don’t do that. Not even before Halloween. – Okay, thanks Hunter. Lemme know what you pick up. – Yeah, in twenty. Bye.” Once he hung up, he pushed the phone across the marble and shoved up his shirtsleeves. “I think he and I’ve been spending too much time together.” 

“Another stakeout tonight?” Opening the wine cupboard, she reached in to select a bottle – that she and Fitz may or may not ever actually get to drinking.

“Third this week. I think I’m gonna give Hunter a week off after this one, just so I don’t have to listen to him talk about Mexican football for at least seven days.” Phil watched her take out two wine glasses, tucking his hands into his pockets and leaning against the counter. “I take it your engineer’s upstairs.”

“Yes,” she answered, hunting for the misplaced corkscrew. “Since the last time he was here you successfully terrified him –”

“I was talking shop! Doesn’t he work in weaponry development? Who knew that showing him just a couple things from my arsenal would be so terrifying.” Jemma shot him a dry look and he shrugged. “I was just being friendly.”

Rolling her eyes, Jemma tucked the wine under one arm and raised an eyebrow. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time _you_ bring a date home. I still have your prom pictures, you know.” The sound of a faucet being turned on upstairs interrupted the house’s silence, and Jemma realized that it was even more quiet than usual. “Is Skye out?” 

“Theoretically she’s at night class,” he muttered, glancing down at his watch. “Which should’ve let out two hours ago.”

“Her classes aren’t on Fridays,” Jemma pointed out gently, amused by how paternal Phil became around her friend and their sometimes-flat mate. “She’s probably out with Detective Triplett again.” 

Phil groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “This is why I take night jobs, so I don’t have to think about either of you two having....” 

“Dates? Relationships? Lives?” Her voice was light, and she smiled as he shot her a wry look. This was a conversation they’d had many times over the years, and she was well aware that his bellyaching was mostly for show. As she tried to balance all of her accouterments in her arms, Phil fell into a pensive silence.

“He’s young.” 

Frowning, Jemma shifted the bottle higher up in the crook of her elbow. “Who, Fitz?” 

“Yeah.” Before she could protest, her mouth already open to do so, Phil held his hands out to stop her. “It’s not bad. I mean, it’s good. If you – I mean, if you stay with him, he’ll be around longer than me.”

The bottle almost slid out of her grasp, and she managed to halt its fall just in time, quickly putting the glasses, corkscrew, and bottle on the counter before anything else could happen. Her chest felt oddly like someone had just sliced it open with a scalpel, and she couldn’t help the waver to her voice when she looked up at her son. “Philip....”

“I worry, you know,” he continued, glancing down at the floor before returning his gaze to hers. “Who’s going to look after you when I’m gone.”

She didn’t have an answer for him, pulse thudding heavily in her ears as she tried not to think about how, someday, Phil would be taken from her. Just like everyone else for whom she’d cared in her long life. The idea that he worried about what she would be like once he was gone just made her chest constrict further; of course he was more concerned about her than he was about his own lifespan. That was the man she’d raised through and through, and the idea of one day standing by his grave was too painful to imagine. 

“I just wanted to say that I think he’ll do a good job,” Phil continued, interrupting her melancholy reverie. “Even if he is _way_ too afraid of antique grenades for a weapons designer.” A small chuckle eked out of her throat at Phil’s joke, and he gave her a brief smile as he strode past her into the hall. “I’ll be home tomorrow morning.” 

Rather than follow him towards the stairs, Jemma leaned against the counter and took in deep, calming breaths. If she was going to return to the cheerful mood in which she’d arrived at the house, she needed to expunge that sense of dread first. Her thoughts returned to Fitz, who was surely waiting impatiently for her in her room, and the corner of her mouth ticked up. Nothing ever made her as happy these days as simply seeing him.

 

\------

 

_April, 1814_

 

The gardens behind the Ward family mansion were probably Jemma’s favorite place in the world, and at this time of year the flowers were just beginning to open, every pathway smelling of freshly-trimmed hedges and new earth. Spending a few hours curled in the gazebo next to her fiancé seemed like a perfect afternoon to Jemma, even if he was being pigheaded about her returning to work so soon.

“They need my assistance, Grant – Nurse Weaver said the hospital has been desperate since I left.” Jemma nudged Grant’s shoulder with her own, widening her eyes in a way that usually resulted in him caving. It was such a look that had initially convinced him to push the bounds of propriety in terms of how they conducted their relationship, many months ago. They were sitting quite close together, without any supervision, and Grant held her hand in both of his.

Her very symmetrical eyes didn’t manage to have any effect on him today, however, since he kept his gaze averted, chiseled jaw clenching as he worked out his next argument. “You didn’t just _leave_ , Jemma,” he said at last, “you were shot, almost died, and then _kidnapped_.” He hissed the last, glancing furtively around the abandoned gardens.

Jemma’s ordeal had become quite the sensation within Boston’s upper echelons, and the Wards were doing everything possible to negate any potential ill effects the story might have upon the family’s reputation before the church officially sanctioned the match. In some ways, it was a blessing that there had been so many witnesses of her shooting, because it meant that the city knew at least part of her tale was true. The wound would scar badly, the skin already beginning to pucker, but considering its placement over her heart Grant would be the only person to ever see it.

“Working at that hospital is too dangerous for you, that’s all,” he finished, and Jemma couldn’t help the way her eyes narrowed. It may be standard practice for young women to be ordered around by first their fathers and then their husbands, but it chafed against her independent spirit. As much as she enjoyed obeying rules, she had always been well aware of her superior intelligence, and she didn’t care for being treated as an inferior.

But she was well aware that working along with a system is the best way to adjust it to suit one’s own needs, so she sighed, and nibbled at her lip as she tried to get Grant to meet her gaze. “I’ll be fine – they’ve installed a security guard at the entrance now. I can take care of myself.”

“Oh _can_ you?” He shot up off the bench they were sharing, passing a hand over his face before turning back to her. “One half-trained imbecile of a guard can’t guarantee your safety –”

“Neither can you, Grant, not all the time!”

He sighed and glanced away, unintentionally throwing his Adonis-esque jawline into sharp relief. “You’re right.”

They’d been engaged for just over a year now, the ceremony having been delayed due to Grant’s brief military service, but their secret courtship had lasted for much longer. Grant was no match to her intellect, but he was amusing and thoughtful, and Jemma was certain they’d have incredibly beautiful children together. He’d originally been promised to a wealthy waif from somewhere up North, and it had taken him a long while to figure out how to “sell” his unbearably hierarchy-conscious parents on Jemma.  So, unlike many couples within the Bostonian aristocracy, they’d known each other well long before they would walk down the aisle, and she knew that he would calm down if she could bring his focus back to her.

“I usually am,” she teased, reaching one hand out to beckon him back to the bench.

“But you’ll still be safer away from that hospital.”

Her mouth dropped open, pulse speeding up at his unholy stubbornness. “You can’t stop me from working, Grant!”

“Not for another two months, at least,” he snapped, unsubtly implying that once they were legally bound his ability to control her would increase. To his credit, he looked rather abashed as soon as the words came out of his mouth, but that didn’t stop Jemma from wanting to stomp right out of the pavilion and wait for him to beg her forgiveness. 

Then again, there was a reason why she was so unafraid of returning to work: She knew that no true harm could come to her now. Surely Grant’s worries would be eased if he knew the truth. Although the idea of telling anyone about her secret frightened her, she _was_ planning on spending the rest of her life with him – whatever that would come to mean – so his finding out was likely inevitable. 

Having made her decision, Jemma exhaled, still annoyed by his previous comment. “Clearly we need to have a conversation about what marriage entails, Grant, but – I have a proposal. If you knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that no harm could come to me, would you stop worrying about me continuing my work?”

Letting out a dark laugh, Grant glanced over at her. “I suppose I would, not that I think you could present me with that kind of an assurance.”

Jemma rolled her eyes and stood, brushing off her petticoats. At Grant’s orders, upon their arrival the gardeners had abandoned their supplies around a nearby shrubbery, so she had a plan formulated even before she reached the wooden wheelbarrow. Before grasping the intended object, however, she turned back to her fiancé, giving him a hesitant smile and wobbling a little in the slick grass.

“You trust me, don’t you?” 

He followed her to the entrance of the pavilion, curious if bemused, and his face softened further at her question. “Of course I do, Jemma.”

“Good,” she replied quickly, reaching behind her before she lost her nerve. “And I trust you. I’d trust you with my life – and, actually, I’m about to. What I’m about to tell you may seem completely mad, and impossible, and even sacrilegious. But I swear, Grant, it is all true.” Frowning, he crossed his arms and gave her a small nod to continue. “When that madman shot me, I died and came back to life. And I know it sounds impossible, so I’m going to show you.”

She pulled the gardening shears out of the wheelbarrow, only fumbling the unwieldy blades a little as she opened them and pressed them against her throat. Grant inhaled sharply and lurched forward, hands reaching forward as she continued. “Oh, lord, this is going to hurt, I expect. I will either appear in the Charles or your duck pond – I know I will return in water, but I haven’t figured out yet if proximity or size matters more. Please come get me quickly, I would prefer to not be seen if at all possible.”

Choking on his words, Grant inched his way forward. “Jemma, give those to me.”

“I’ll be fine, I promise –”

“I’m sure you’re just overtired –”

“I am not, Grant, you’ll see –”

“If you just give them to me, we can talk about the hospital. Please, Jemma.”

She opened her mouth again to protest, but stopped, reading the terror etched across his face. Her surprise allowed the blades to lower enough that Grant could grab them, and although she reached quickly to catch them, he easily held them out of her grasp. 

“You said you trusted me,” she said, studying the way a wall had gone up behind his eyes as soon as the shears were out of her hands.

Grant paused, swallowing over his hesitation. “I do... trust you.” 

“So return those to me,” she ordered, planting one hand on her hip and holding the other out. “Otherwise I’m going to have to find another way to give you proof, and I truly don’t fancy having to hunt for either weapons or rope on your parents’ property.” When he didn’t move she sighed, and turned to begin her search.

“I don’t need proof,” Grant blurted out, causing Jemma to turn. “I believe you!” His eyes were wide as he took a few steps forward, one held pleadingly outward. “I believe you,” he repeated, more sure of himself. “Please – please don’t harm yourself. I believe you.” 

By the third time he said it, his voice had quieted, and although something sad lurked behind his eyes Jemma knew him well enough that she was certain there was no falsehood hidden there. Smiling widely, she took the few steps in to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, stretching up on her tiptoes to do so. “Thank you,” she breathed, closing her eyes as she listened to his heart beating steadily underneath her ear. After a moment, he wrapped his free hand around her shoulders, fingers gripping her firmly. “I love you, Grant.” 

She could feel him exhale, and he leaned down to press a kiss to the top of her head. “And I, you,” he answered, voice shaking slightly. In retrospect, it’s possible that she could have approached the subject in a less reactionary way, but it had worked out in the end. Ultimately, having told him before they were married was probably important – they would spend the rest of their lives together, and although Jemma wasn’t sure what her condition would entail, he deserved to know the truth. For better or worse, she and Grant loved each other, and now that he knew, he could love all of her. 

 

\------

_October 18 th, 2014_

 

With Fitz smoothing one hand along her bare arm, down to her elbow and up around her shoulder, Jemma slowly began to feel like herself again. The image of his lifeless body seeped into memory rather than feeling like something she’d turn around to see at any moment, and she took a long, shuddering breath. Lifting her head, her eyes drifted to the early morning sun that snuck through the blinds, dust motes dancing in the rays of light. From her perch on the bed, she could see yesterday’s bra draped haphazardly over her floor lamp, having caught there when Fitz had flung it away last night. Another modicum of tension seeped from her shoulders as her lips ticked up in a half-smile.

Sliding one arm around her abdomen, Fitz pressed a kiss to the back of her right shoulder. “You back?” 

She exhaled and nodded, reaching over her stomach to tangle her fingers between his. “Yes. Thank you, Fitz. I – I haven’t had a nightmare that awful in years, I think." 

His lips faltered against her skin. “D’you want to talk about it?”

“Not –” A shudder ran up her spine and she leaned back into him. “Not yet.”

“Alright,” he murmured, sweeping her hair aside to press more kisses up the back of her neck. “That’s okay.” After a few moments of silence, he huffed out a small, flat laugh. “You scared me, Jemma.”

“I’m sorry –” she started, but he made a sharp noise and interrupted.

“Don’t be. Just never seen you like that before. Not sure I’ve ever seen you scared of anything.”

Jemma couldn’t believe that; she felt like she wore her fear on her face all the time, as if whenever she looked his way the whole world could see her terror that he would be taken from her. Her fingers tightened around his. 

“I haven’t –” She cleared her throat, convincing herself to be truthful. “I haven’t been scared of anything, really, in a long time. Not until Phil. And then you.” 

He nodded at her mention of Phil but stopped at the next sentence. “Me?”

Squeezing her eyes shut and holding onto him a little more tightly, she exhaled into her next sentence. “It was you. In the dream. You were....” Her breath caught, and she decided not to even say it. The fear was too raw still, her own imagined screams tickling the back of her throat. “That’s why I was scared.”

“Oh, Jemma,” he murmured, snugging her closer against his chest. “Don’t worry about me.”

“But I will anyway,” she answered without hesitation. “I won’t be able to stop myself.” She could feel him open his mouth, swallow, and then stay silent.

There was so much she wanted to say to him – about her past, about her feelings for him, about what she wanted for their future – but she never knew where to start. Talking about her thoughts had never been Jemma’s strong suit, and with Fitz it was no exception. The difference was that, with him, the words mattered more than they had with anyone else, and eventually she was going to have to try to tell him exactly how much he meant to her. She just didn’t know yet how she was going to go about it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also: Do as I say and not as they do - always use a condom, kids.

_October 18 th, 2014_

 

Shifting around behind her on the bed, Fitz settled himself more comfortably against Jemma’s back. A brief smile ticked up the corner of her mouth at his steadfast provision of comfort, and she tilted her head towards him. “I’m sorry I woke you up.” 

Turning his head so that his cheek lay against her shoulder, he made a quiet, derisive noise. “I don’t mind. I kept you up late anyway, so it’s only fair.”

“I rather thought that was _my_ idea,” she murmured, warmth pooling in her stomach at the memory of what they’d done right before falling asleep tangled together.

“ _I_ meant finishing that Doctor Who marathon. The rest was definitely your fault.” 

She gave the arm curled around her a light slap as she laughed, feeling his lips curve up against her skin. “Oh, my _fault_. Never mind, then, you won’t have to worry about me doing that again.” Fitz let out a low whine, and she rolled her eyes. “I might be convinced to relent. Maybe. If you’re well behaved.”

“Yes, Doctor,” he murmured against her skin, turning to drop kisses along her neck. Jemma shivered, but not from cold – he was using that deeper tone against her, and as much as it was unfair she couldn’t quite resist. After a moment, he tucked his chin against her neck and hummed thoughtfully. “Y’know, you’re sorta like a Time Lord. Lady. A Time Lady.”

Jemma chuckled. “I’m really not, though. No magical powers for me – just a really, really long life.”

He was carried off by the idea though, and she almost turned around, imagining the excited glint in his eyes. “But you _are_ – you travel about, go on adventures across continents, live longer than humans. You even have companions that you pick up along the way!” At her sigh, he nudged her. “Alright, Nancy Downer, why _aren’t_ you like a Time Lady?”

“Well, I don’t regenerate, do I?” When he lapsed into silence, she knew she’d thrown a wrench in the biggest part of his comparison – she and the Doctor were both more-or-less immortal, but in very different ways. 

“No, you’re right,” he conceded thoughtfully. “Good thing, too. I rather like this body.” 

“Yes, well, so does the universe, because I can’t quite seem to get rid of it.” 

It was out of her mouth before she’d really thought it through, and she instantly wished she’d made a lighthearted joke about knowing how much he liked her body. Instead, she’d blurted out that, and she felt his muscles tense around her. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean it like that, Fitz.” He didn’t respond. “I’m sorry, it was a stupid joke.”

They’d spent much of their free time together over the past few months working to find ways to restart her aging process, examining her cellular structure and designing machines that could potentially survive the rebirth process. Part of that work required discussion of her death, however, and the more it was discussed in Fitz’s lab, the more it seemed to bother him. Jemma understood why, of course – she wasn’t thick enough to not understand that. But it made things difficult sometimes, because she was loathe to cause him pain and yet she _needed_ to find a way to become normal again. Whatever the cost.

“I know I sorta asked you this before, but....” His voice faltered, now quiet and having lost its prior mirth. “If you had to choose between dying immediately, right now, or living forever, without any other chances to die permanently... which would you choose? If you – if you don’t mind telling me.”

Jemma closed her eyes, squeezing his fingers more tightly. She knew what he wanted her to say – of course he didn’t want her to die, even if it were what she wanted. And in the past, only a few dozen years ago, she would probably have chosen death without hesitating for more than a moment. It wasn’t that she relished the idea of dying, or that she was suicidal – dying, in fact, still scared her – but that time is wearing when one is perennially alone and not naturally a solitary creature. Today, though, she had so much more to live _for_ than she once did – Phil needed her, as much as he would never admit it, and now there was Fitz. Jemma couldn’t bear the thought of being without him, even after only knowing him for less than a year. The question was really which would she rather bear – losing the days to come, or avoiding an endless lifetime without him? 

“I... I don’t know, Fitz,” she whispered, keeping her head tilted carefully away from his face, desperate to avoid the rebuke or shock that surely twisted his features, even in her peripheral vision. “Right here, right now... I would choose to live, I think. I still have so much to learn – and years to spend with you and Phil. But at some point in the future...”

“But here, right now,” he interrupted, “you’d choose to live.” 

“Yes.” Her face twisted as she tried to hold back her tears, although the warmth of his arms around her made that more difficult. Even if she’d never been one for sharing, Fitz had always made speaking her mind easier. “Because I – I’m not strong enough to leave you.”

She’d actually started out intending to end that sentence very differently, but changed course as she spoke – out of fear, or nerves, or something else. What she’d said was true enough, and she tried to quash the fluttering in her stomach. Fitz wouldn’t leave her, not now; he’d already proved himself steadier and more accepting than anyone else she’d ever met. The night she told him about her condition, they’d promised that they would always be honest with each other, and although she couldn’t tell him the truth about everything, not exactly, she always tried to be candid about how she felt. One day she’d work up the courage to say what she’d truly meant. 

Fitz breathed a sigh of relief against her shoulder. “Okay. That’s good. I don’t want to... I mean, I want to keep working on that, with you, but I don’t want to have to worry....”

“I wouldn’t leave you, Fitz,” she murmured, mind drifting back to her dream. “Not unless you wanted me to.” 

“Not a chance,” he answered automatically, and she smiled, trying to remind herself that leaving would only hurt both of them in the long run.

During the worst days, when Fitz would be called away on a case that was too dangerous to permit her presence, Jemma would distract herself by remembering the way he looked at her after their first time together. Her face had been raised slightly above his, legs spread on either side of his hips where they were still joined, both trembling from their exertion, and she’d turned to look at him, her breath coming out in heavy gasps. When their eyes met, though, Jemma almost lost the ability to breathe altogether. His hands came up to cradle her face, fingers smoothing gently over her skin, and the way he stared up at her... it was reverent, an unconscious smile hovering around his lips, a depth of feeling to his dark, azure eyes that no scientist could ever quantify. If she could spend forever in that moment she would agree to do so in a heartbeat, unscientific as that may be.

Fitz looked at her like he couldn’t comprehend how she was here with him, as if all the science in the world couldn’t explain her decision to grace him with her presence – and it wasn’t because she was, by all definitions, an unnatural phenomenon. It was because she was _her_ – an overly logical, periodically arrogant, and more than slightly awkward medical examiner, and for some reason he looked at her as if she was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen. Any words she’d thought to say had flown out of her mind as she drank in the expression on his face and he studied her right back, the impression that they were both trying to understand the existence of the other flitting through Jemma’s mind. That moment, those few seconds of feeling more loved than she ever had in her long lifetime, kept her going no matter the day, and it was then that she knew she’d never be able to push Fitz away.

 

\------

 

_April, 1814_

 

Stretching, Jemma awoke slowly in her bed, eagerly anticipating surprising her fiancé with his favorite lunch in a few hours. She was still experimenting with different ingredients, but one day she’d figure out the perfect aioli to use on her sandwiches, and for the moment Grant was her test subject. But instead of the chirping of hatchlings outside of her window, she first registered the sound of quiet sobbing somewhere in her room. When she opened her eyes, the sight of Grant standing grimly by the side of her bed had her grasping to pull up the sheets to cover herself over her nightclothes. Then she registered that her parents were huddled in the corner of the room, and she realized that the sobbing was coming from her mother. 

“Grant – Father, what on....” 

“I’m so sorry,” Grant whispered, stepping back to allow two strong men in medical smocks access to pass him by.

Jemma screamed when they grabbed her by her arms and dragged her out of bed, and she twisted wildly in their grasp. “Grant, what did you _do?!_ ”

“You need help, Jemma!” His voice wavered but his expression did not, and the two thugs manhandling her yanked her into the hallway after them. 

As they spun her forward, she glimpsed the rickety, white-painted carriage known to everyone in Boston. “No,” she breathed out, voice going ragged with fear. “No, _please_ , not the sanatorium –!”

“Please, Jemma, be well behaved,” Grant pleaded from behind her, keeping apace even though he didn’t try to stop the sanatorium workers from squeezing her arms so painfully she was sure they’d leave harsh bruises. 

Ignoring him, she tried to pull out of the workers’ grasp, splinters cutting painfully into her soles as she scrambled for any sort of traction. “I am _not_ mad!” 

“You tried to kill yourself in front of me!” He circled around to catch her eye, halting their progress before they descended down the front steps.

“You said you believed me!” Her voice caught in her throat and her eyes burned with tears to which she wouldn’t give in, not yet.

“It’s for your own good, I swear it.” Fiddling with the pin she’d given him last year for Christmas, he looked the very picture of serenity, chiseled face set and certain that he was in the right. 

Then the sanatorium workers picked Jemma bodily up, and she screamed again, finally letting the tears escape in choking gasps. Kicking out sharply, she was able to turn so she could look back at her fiancé. “Grant, _please_ , _help me_! Don’t do this!” she cried out, desperate, hoping against everything that he would remember the girl with whom he’d fallen in love not so long ago. That he would remember that she’d trusted him with her whole life, and he couldn’t break her confidence so cruelly.

“I’m trying to _save_ you, Jemma,” Grant replied, voice catching at last as he watched the men force her unceremoniously into the dark carriage and then lock the doors.

Jemma pounded against the entrance until her fists bled, wood splinters slicing her skin from where thousands of people had begged to be freed before her. The carriage lurched forward, horseshoes stomping steadily against the packed-earth street, and sent her stumbling to the floor. Momentarily stunned, Jemma burst into hopeless tears, Grant’s certainty of her own madness seared into her mind’s eye. He’d lied in the face of her complete trust, and now she was being sent to the most frightening place in the city to atone for sins that were not of her choosing.

The carriage rocked underneath her as she curled in on herself, frantically trying to keep the fear from swallowing her whole. She’d find a way out, Jemma promised herself – she had to.

 

\------

 

_October 18, 2014_

 

Fitz snugged his arms more tightly around her, and Jemma sighed, a distinct sense of peace spreading from her chest out all the way to her fingers and toes.

“You’re finally relaxing,” he said, rubbing one hand along her arm. “Good.” 

“You’re a very good cure for fear,” she quipped, mirroring the smile she was sure he wore.

“That’s me – Leo Fitz, engineer, detective, and cure-all.”

Jemma laughed, feeling like herself again for the first time since she’d woken up. In her entire life – all multiple-hundred-years of it – she’d never felt as calm as she did in Fitz’s arms. “Sometimes,” she murmured, tilting her face so she could see him in her peripheral vision, “I think that everything I’ve ever done was so that I’d be worthy of you.” His hold slackened briefly and then pulled tight again as he brushed a kiss to the back of her neck.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just me, and you’re perfect as y’are,” he mumbled against her skin, and she wondered if he was blushing. 

Wanting to know the answer to that thought, Jemma shifted around so they were sitting hip-to-hip, carefully pulling the sheet with her to preserve what little warmth it provided. Sure enough, his ears were slightly pink, and she couldn’t help but grin briefly before wrapping one arm around his shoulders and nuzzling her face into his neck, instinctively seeking out where he’d be the warmest.

“I mean it, Fitz,” she said. “You are... unlike anyone else I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a _lot_ of people.”

Having resettled around her new position, he chuckled, the sound vibrating through where her nose touched his throat. “Maybe I haven’t met as many people as you, but I feel the same. For whatever that’s worth.”

“It’s worth a lot,” she replied simply. Jemma was naturally disinclined to big declarations of affection, and her previous statement made her feel oddly shy, in a way she hadn’t in very many years. It was a thought she’d had some weeks ago, and now that it was out in the open she felt rather silly, although its accuracy remained true. All of the hardships she’d suffered, the people she’d saved (and those she’d failed) – all of that seemed somehow to have led her to Leo Fitz, and she was so very grateful.  

After a moment, he cleared his throat. “You really mean that?”

“Yes.” Her answer was immediate, and she guessed she caught him off-guard because he exhaled in surprise. 

“Sometimes...” Fitz chuckled, interrupting himself. “Ah, even though I know the truth, sometimes I still feel like I’ll never understand all of you. How could you.... _Worthy_. I’m the luckiest guy alive just for you giving me the time of day.” 

Jemma opened her mouth to disagree but stopped herself, knowing that they’d just end up arguing about which one was luckier and choosing instead to let her eyes slip closed and focus on his continued presence beside her. “At least we feel the same way,” she whispered, sliding one hand up along his bare chest to curl around his neck.

“Yeah,” he replied, a small laugh to his tone, “I guess we’re even.” They sat curled together in silence for a few moments, but she could feel him tilt his head down to look at her, the proverbial gears turning almost audibly in his head. “Hey, Jemma,” he began, “can I...?” The question trailed off, and she raised her head from his shoulder to properly see the hesitance in his gaze. His hand hovered just above the scar on her right breast, and she smiled softly. It was somewhat ridiculous for him to ask, because they were both very naked already, and by this point in their relationship Fitz had touched practically every centimeter of skin on her body. 

“Of course,” she murmured back, knowing that he’d only asked as a sort of tacit indication that he wasn’t going to try anything with her right now. Not that she would object, honestly – now that time had passed since she’d awoken from the nightmare, she was reminded of how very attractive she found him first thing in the morning, his normally well-controlled hair adorably tousled and an edge of sleepiness hanging around his eyes.

Her approval given, Fitz leaned in and glided his first two fingers along the ragged edge of the scar, gently at first, as if worried he’d hurt her. Although the sheet covered her, Jemma felt the skin of her breasts shiver, nipples tightening at even this slight attention from him, and she bit the inside of her lip, trying to ignore the impending arousal in favor of watching his expression shift as he continued to explore the scar. 

“You were shot, kidnapped, and then locked away...?” A frown creasing his brow, he mumbled this under his breath, almost to himself, and she nodded.

“In the sanatorium, yes.” They’d gone over the earliest weeks of her condition countless times, with the hope that maybe she had missed some symptom or catalyst that Fitz would catch. 

“I don’t think you ever told me how you got out.” He flicked his eyes up to hers. “Of the sanatorium.”

A bitter smile twisted her mouth, and she glanced through the window at the morning’s hazy light. “I killed myself.” His breath caught, and she reached down to press her hand to his where it lay over her scar, trying to offer him the same comfort he’d given her so effortlessly. “My cellmate helped me rig a hangman’s noose with torn sheets. That was the first time I’d ever done it intentionally, actually. Died. And the Charles is _not_ the most welcoming body of water in April,” she finished lightly, trying to make a joke out of the morbid turn of conversation.

“Christ, Jemma,” Fitz whispered, voice low as he stared up at her with the bright blue eyes of which she was so fond. Unsure how to smooth over something so patently horrific, she gave him a weak smile and glanced down at where their fingers were entwined over her bared chest. Inhaling, she released his hand, silently hoping he’d return to whatever train of thought he’d held before her answer had so clearly shocked him.

After a few, long seconds of him studying her face, he set his mouth into a thin line and dropped his gaze to the scar, tracing his fingers over its edges. Normally, the scar tissue was less sensitive than the rest of her skin, nerves dulled by the damage, but for some reason – be it Fitz or her nudity – today it was achingly attuned to every brush of his fingertips. Eventually, his touches became firmer, as if testing the way the scar reacted compared to the rest of her skin, and she was desperately curious about what was going through his head. It felt like he was cataloguing this small patch of her skin, and she wanted to know why.

“What are you thinking?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, as if to avoid disturbing his contemplation. 

Fitz flitted his eyes up to hers for a moment before returning to the scar, pressing his hand to her chest next to it, in the same way someone would feel for a heartbeat. “I dunno,” he answered, brows creasing in thought. “Just... thinking about what you’ve told me. About when it happened.” After a pause, he raised his gaze and slid both of his hands into hers. “Not sure how to say this, but, I wanna try, alright?” A sliver of nervousness worked its way into her stomach at the seriousness of his expression, but she nodded anyway.

“I never... I s’pose I had relationships before I met you, but – it wasn’t the same. No one ever really interested me. Until you. And I was just looking at your scar and thinking about how it should’ve – or, I mean, how the wound should’ve killed you. It _did_ kill you. But you made your way to me anyway. And I know that your life has been incredibly hard, I know that, and I’d do anything to change that, but... it still sort of feels like a miracle to me. Like this scar –” He rested his hand against her skin again, the tips of his fingers against the center of the puckered flesh. “– is sorta a symbol of how you managed to find me, even against the laws of nature.” Fitz screwed up his face at the last, giving his head a quick shake. “That sounds awful. But I just mean that I’m grateful for your curse, or condition, or whatever you wanna call it. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna work damn hard to fix it for you, but... I felt like you should know that.” He dropped his head, chuckling. “Yeah, I’m a right sap. Don’t tell Trip or he’ll never let me hear the end of it.” 

Jemma struggled to find something, anything, to say back, but her throat had constricted and all the air was gone from her lungs. The silence in the room stretched on, and when Fitz looked up his expression shifted immediately to horror. As he reached for her, she dimly recognized that there were tears sliding down her cheeks again, and she berated herself for being so bloody weak this morning. This wasn’t her – Jemma Simmons didn’t just start _crying_ , for God’s sake. And yet here she was, letting her significant other (partner? Boyfriend? More than something so simple? What were they to each other now?) pull her back over his lap and stroke his hand through her hair. 

“Aw Jemma, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –”

“They’re not sad tears,” she managed to get out, doing a few slow breaths to steady herself before continuing. “I’ve never – I’ve just never _believed_ that my condition could be considered anything other than a freakish accident, or, yes, even a curse on the worst days. It should be physically impossible, how could it be anything else?” Inhaling deeply, Jemma raised her eyes to meet his, which still seemed apprehensive about her reaction, and cupped his jaw with both her hands. “You make me believe that it was a miracle, Fitz.”

He smiled, although his gaze flickered to the few tears trailing down her cheeks, and then leaned in to press their foreheads gently together. “Good. ‘Cause you are. Even if you don’t feel like it.”

All of a sudden, she wanted Fitz more than she could ever remember wanting anything in her life – physically, yes, but just to be around him as much as possible. It was possessive in a way she’d never felt before; he was _her_ miracle. She needed him.

“I want you,” she said, voice quiet but firm.

He pulled away, brows furrowing as he glanced down at the tears still on her cheeks. “What do you... now...?”

Jemma laughed, sliding her hands up to his neck. “Yes, that, too, but – I just... want you.”

Fitz’s grin was wide, the colors of his irises shifting in the early morning light. “Me, too. Wait, no –” She couldn’t help but laugh as he stammered, shaking his head. “I _meant_ I want you, too.”

“Good,” she answered, sitting up straighter and moving so she was more directly in front of him. “Because I plan on keeping you.” After taking a moment to watch his smile, Jemma pressed her lips to his, winding her arms around his shoulders and pulling him over her as she lay back onto the bed, the sheet separating them slipping away. He tried to catch himself on the mattress as they dropped backward, but instead he sort of flopped ungracefully onto her, and she broke the kiss, devolving into giggles.

“That was _almost_ sexy,” he muttered into her shoulder, and she just covered her mouth, trying to keep herself from snorting. Over the edges of her fingers, Jemma watched Fitz raise his head and glare good-naturedly up at her. “That was your fault.”

“And it was completely worth the look on your face,” she managed to get out in between laughs. He’d been adjusting himself to a more comfortable position, so she didn’t notice where his hand was moving until he pressed between her labia and his forefinger made a firm, deliberate circle over her clit. She gasped as her previous, brief arousal returned in full force.

“So was that,” he murmured into her neck, and she couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped as he slid his fingers down to rub gently around her entrance, slicking into the increasing wetness there before returning to the sensitized bundle of nerves. He groaned quietly, nuzzling into her jaw.

Once she was able to get a proper breath, she managed to move her hands so that one scrunched into his hair and the other gripped his shoulder, feeling his muscles flex and tense as he continued winding her up. He loved doing this, using his hands on her, and although she’d never really had any more interest in hands above the rest of the male form they had quickly become her favorite of Fitz’s body parts. Well, second and third favorites, anyway – his best attribute would always be his brain, the part of him that contained the person she so adored. Her legs parted further as he started on a slow pattern, arcing up over her clit before sliding back down, and her hips shifted, torn between her conscious desire to stay exactly where she was and her body’s instincts to chase the sparks of pleasure working through her from his touch.

“Make love to me, Fitz,” she breathed, cheeks flushing abruptly at how ridiculous that sounded out loud. But it seemed the only way to tell him what she wanted and how she felt all at once – they weren’t ready to say it to each other, not yet. Less than a year felt too soon to someone who hadn’t said it to a romantic partner in almost two centuries. The last time she’d told a man she’d loved him, he’d almost cost her everything. But Jemma felt it for Fitz, she knew she did, and she thought he did, too – so now she just hoped he wouldn’t tease her for the flowery phrasing, that maybe he’d see what she was trying to say without saying anything.

His ministrations slowed but didn’t still entirely at her words, and he lifted his head up to stare at her, the striations of his irises so striking in the sunlight. Her breath hitched as he toyed with her clit again, distracting her from her nerves, and he pressed slow kisses over her cheeks, forehead, and jawline. A smile spread across his face when he lifted away to look at her, a faint blush blooming on his cheeks, and he exhaled. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.” 

Fitz leaned down to give her a properly distracting kiss, then, and as his tongue slid across hers she moaned softly into his mouth at the dual feeling of his kiss and his fingers gradually speeding up their pace. “Now,” Jemma breathed when they broke apart, and he glanced at her bedside table before letting out a chuckle and turning back.

“Sorry, still not used to not needing....” He shrugged and returned to her kiss, shifting so that he was situated between her parted legs. That was one of the strange boons of being in a serious relationship with someone who was frozen in time – unexpected pregnancies weren’t a concern (and she trusted him to have been as honest about his past as she was). 

The new angle meant that he had to remove his hand, but it was shortly replaced by the feeling of his erection against just about the same place. Gripping his hips, she shifted them so that he was pressed against her clit, and she shivered as he gasped. When he didn’t move right away, Jemma rolled her hips, forcing the slide of his shaft through her slickness and making her shudder. Fitz groaned deep in his throat at her movements, mouth parted in stunned arousal as he realized what she wanted. Now that he’d caught up, he started purposefully stroking his cock against her center, and she moaned as she felt those tendrils of pleasure tighten faster and faster. Indistinct sounds of arousal began escaping her throat with every pass, he nipped gently at her bottom lip, and she realized that she was achingly close to coming. Fitz was good – very good – at making her come undone on a normal day, but this was fast even for him. She’d intended to have him inside of her as soon as possible, but this felt far too good to stop.

Wrapping both hands around his biceps, she squeezed hard enough that her nails would leave marks where they pressed into his fair skin, unable to get a proper breath and losing the ability to focus on anything other than where Fitz stroked against her. “Almost, Leo – I’m _almost_ –”

He groaned against her mouth at the rare use of his first name, and he sped up in exactly the way she wanted. “Again, Jemma.”

“ _Leo_ ,” she let out on a small cry, back arching as her hips bucked upwards, seeking her release. She opened her eyes as he glided his lips down to her breast, sucking lightly at the nipple before scraping his teeth gently over her sensitized skin. The sharpness of his teeth and the rapid slide of his cock over her clit pushed Jemma over the edge, digging her nails into his arms as the world became bright and fuzzy, hormones pulsing through every inch of her body. Dimly, she noted the way he panted against her chest, his muscles straining to keep a steady pace as she tensed and shivered underneath him, completely overcome with feeling.

“Now.” Her voice was barely audible underneath her heavy breaths, but Fitz heard and lifted his gaze to hers. Raising one hand to his cheek, she leaned blindly upwards to capture his lips, wonderful little aftershocks trembling through her nerves. Rather than acquiesce immediately, he continued stroking over her with his cock, groaning quietly at the way she trembled against him in strung-out climactic bliss. He trailed kisses down her neck to the valley between her breasts and then back up to her lips, giving Jemma the brief impression that he was memorizing her.

Once he’d finished distracting her with his mouth, he leaned back, catching her gaze as he reached down to find the right angle and then push slowly in. Her muscles were still tensing and releasing in the aftermath, and he groaned as he bottomed out inside of her, small pants fanning her lips. Jemma could hardly breathe, her limbs feeling almost disconnected as she focused on the heat and hardness of him sliding into her. She’d never lost herself in another person like she did when she was with Fitz, and somehow it still felt new every time. After a moment of adjustment so that he pressed against her clit on every stroke in just the way he knew she liked, canting his hips down and pushing up on her lower back with one hand, he began to move within her in earnest. Parting her lips at the feeling of him thrusting into her, Jemma hooked her legs over his knees, opening herself up to him as much as possible as she met his rhythm with her hips. The way they moved together, every inch of her torso pressed flush against his in one of their more intimate positions, made a gentler warmth spread through Jemma, as if him being inside of her wasn’t close enough – as if their whole bodies were working together to meld into one.

“You feel incredible, Jemma,” Fitz murmured, letting out a groan of pleasure into the crook of her neck. “So, _God_ , so good –”

“Look at me.” She returned her hands to either side of his neck, holding his face mere millimeters from hers and unable to help the low whimpers she made as he thrust into her, the pressure against her clit making it feel as if she was still riding out the high of her orgasm. His pupils were blown wide, just the barest ring of blue visible, and his stubble glinted in the morning sunlight. Being able to see him watch her while he held her close brought back that feeling of being adored, as if she was his entire world, and it made her feel unmoored, as if they were suspended in a void with nothing but each other. At just that moment, Fitz managed to stroke against a particularly sensitive place within her, causing her vision to blur as she felt the stirrings of another climax. “ _God_ , just there – like that!” He found the right angle again and she moaned loudly against his mouth, limbs trembling in desire and pleasure.

She wanted to drop her head back, half-dizzy with the sparks shooting through her nerves, but more than that she needed to keep eye contact with Fitz, nails pressing into where she was holding his neck above her. Sometimes, with past partners, she’d closed her eyes and let herself drift into an imaginary world where she was normal and the person holding her was someone she loved. But Fitz wasn’t imaginary; she loved him and she wanted to spend every second knowing exactly who was making her feel this way. 

“Better –” Jemma gasped as he twisted his hips to the right on the next stroke and her whole body shivered, muscles tightening around his cock and making him groan in return. When she got her breath back, she continued, the words broken up as she tried to hold her focus. “So much – better than with any – one else. Ever.” 

His rhythm faltered once he registered her words, jaw dropping slightly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she murmured against his lips, using one hand to keep his face near hers and trailing the other down his side. He smiled, catching the rhythm of her hips again, and she grasped the upper curve of his arse and rubbed her thumb over a particular patch of skin, knowing this trick from having been with him for long enough. As she expected, the repeated motion and pressure of her grip sent him into a long, breathy moan and spurred him to doubling his pace, his thrusts now wild and strong and exactly what she wanted.

The heat and friction of his cock pumping into her was pushing her to the brink again, and he groaned out her name over and over, trying to keep eye contact as she’d asked but his eyelids dropping half-closed anyway. “You’re... everything.” Fitz mumbled this above her, his accent thickened in arousal, and she had to strain to catch it. “ _Everything_.” 

That feeling swelled in her chest of loving and being loved in return, and she tightened around him, that coil of lust just on the edge of combustion. “You –” But he altered his angle again, stroking rapidly over every sensitive place possible, and her orgasm washed over her in a sharp wave, all of her limbs clinging to him as tightly as she could and voice breaking in the middle of a long, high-pitched moan. He bit his lip, riding out her uneven upward thrusts and twitches until he finally gave in, hilting abruptly inside her as he came, groaning out her name one last time. 

She watched his reverent gaze switch rapidly to pure pleasure, mouth working without conscious thought and brows knotting as he found his release. Time stilled for Jemma as they both trembled through their climaxes, sweaty skin sticking together and panting heavily over each other. This was what Jemma had needed this morning, to see Fitz lose himself in her, so like the way he made her feel all the time without really knowing it. As if his love was going to be gone too soon but it felt so good that she could only ride it out. 

Her senses returned to her just before his did, and she moved both hands to his face, petting gently over his slick skin and smiling at the way he’d given in to the feeling and closed his eyes, but still tilted his cheek into her touch. At last, she felt his muscles give out, and he lowered over her, trying to take most of his weight on his elbows as he nuzzled in for a breathless eskimo kiss. 

“Good start to the day?” His voice was hoarse and uneven as he leaned his forehead against hers, and she grinned, smoothing her hands along his back.

“Very possibly the best,” she murmured back. The somewhat sticky aspect of post-coital cuddling was beginning to draw her attention, but all her limbs felt too pleasantly heavy to move, and his radiating warmth was incredibly comforting. There would be time enough later to go clean up, but for now she was more than content to rest here with him, feeling safer than she ever had as he glided one hand up and down her arm. 

Fitz might not be able to stay with Jemma forever, but she could stay with him, and as long as she fought to keep the nightmares at bay she was determined to make these days worth all the lonely lifetimes to come.

 

\------

 

**_The End_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, the source show for this AU was canceled without ever giving us any closure for the protagonist's immortality. As a result, this is all I have planned in this universe for the moment. Please feel free to message my on [my tumblr](http://agentverbivore.tumblr.com) if you have questions about headcanons and the like - I actually know a lot more about this 'verse than ever made it into the fics! 
> 
> It's always possible that I'll decide to revisit this AU down the line if something strikes me, but for the moment I hope you enjoyed this ending. :-)


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